Final 'Art of Evolution' celebrates 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' season finale -- exclusive

The final piece of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Art of Evolution doesn’t just feature the wide variety of characters we’ve come to love throughout the season. It also—in its trademark teasing way—highlights the creative story we’ve followed for the past 22 episodes.

Created by Joshua Budich, an artist who’s no stranger to crafting intricate pop culture pieces, the art showcases the show’s incredibly diverse cast and brings the main players together in a way that teases where we might head in season 3. In the second part our exclusive Art of Evolution coverage for next week’s finale, series EP Jeff Bell discusses more of what we can expect from the season’s last two hours.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Interestingly, the team seems to be split into factions that put people in places you wouldn’t expect: Bobbi and Mack and Gonzales are on the Inhuman side, and the rest of Coulson’s team is on the S.H.I.E.L.D. side.

JEFF BELL: I think for us, it was looking at who has behaved as antagonist to Coulson and who has not. Not bad guys, not evil, not villainous—but who has been forced to be an antagonist? And we split it that way, with Skye splitting the difference.

Season 2 has been about bringing all these connecting threads together, and I think this poster summarizes that really well. You have Hydra at the top, which is where we started out, and then the new S.H.I.E.L.D., the old S.H.I.E.L.D., all our big team players and their new loyalties, and the Inhumans. Everything is another interlocking piece that brings everything together.

The challenge that we keep seeing is keeping it fresh so it doesn’t feel like the same piece of story all season. You want to find a way to mix it up. If this was an HBO show, this would be season four, and you could look back and go, well, the first season introduced these characters, the second season was more of, “oh, Hydra’s in S.H.I.E.L.D.,” and the third one is Skye becoming a superhero. And then getting to the middle of this season, and now we’re sort of getting into this Inhuman world. We’ve tried to make the flavoring different, we’ve tried to tell different stories with different combinations of the same people so it doesn’t feel like you’re getting different versions of the same story every week. The poster did a nice job of summing that up.

After seeing those terrigan crystals that Jiaying used on Gonzales in “Scars,” can we assume that they’re important in the finale, given that Skye is pictured with them?

That’s…an interesting assumption. [laughs]

And I believe episode 20 is also the first time Skye actually uses the word “Inhuman” when categorizing herself, which made me feel like she was really starting to find a place among her people. Does this episode work towards Skye finally making a decision on where she wants to be?

I would say that Skye’s journey has been a big arc of this season, and I think we’re laying some sort of sense of resolution. If you’re reading this season as a book, yes, there’s going to be a sequel to this book. But there are certain aspects you’d want closed in this book. And I know if I were reading that book, that’s one of the storylines I’d want to see closure on.

The finale will tie up questions from season 2, but obviously, it will also pose new ones. What, if anything, can you tease about where we’ll leave our team as we look towards season 3?

I think we have to pay off the big threads for this year and sort of stick the landing of that part and show these stories. And I think we also need to tease that this is where we’re going…and there also might be a little bit of “oh, what was that?”

“S.O.S.”, the second part of the season two finale, airs Tuesday, May 12 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. The art for “S.O.S.” part two will go on sale on Friday, May 8 at www.marvelshop.com/agentsofshield as a $49.99 print (limited to 100 copies) at 12:30 a.m. PT.

More coverage from EW on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Art of Evolution: